Field of the Invention
The present disclosure relates to a remote communication system used to communicate with a remote site, a method for controlling the remote communication system, and a storage medium.
Description of the Related Art
Systems used to communicate with a communication partner located at a different place (a remote site) have been developed. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191613 describes a remote conference system used to conduct a conference with a person located at a different place. The system described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191613 includes a camera for capturing the image of a person, a projector for projecting an image, and a screen that displays the image projected by the projector.
According to the system described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191613, the image of a person captured by a camera set in a conference room is projected onto a screen by a projector set at the other party's location (a remote site). In addition, the image of a person captured by a camera set at the other party's location is projected onto a screen by a projector in the conference room. Furthermore, according to the system described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191613, by displaying a real-size image of a person, the realistic sensation of actually being in a conference room can be increased.
When several people physically located in the same space (e.g., the same room) simply communicate with one another, the people are generally standing and face one another at a distance of 1 to 2 m. If such a form of communication or a similar form of communication can be applied to communication with people in a remote site, the people can easily communicate with one another and understand one another.
As described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2008-191613, the real-size image of a person in a remote site can be displayed. However, if the person who is standing communicates with another person, the person may move during the communication. At that time, if the person moves in the right-left direction, the projected image does not cause a significant trouble. However, if the person moves in the front-rear direction of the screen, a problem of the projected image arises, since the size of the captured image of the person varies due to a change in the distance between the camera and the person. Frequent changes in the size of the person projected onto a screen increase unpleasantness of a person and, thus, the realistic sensation is reduced.
To display the real-size image of a person, the size of the image can be manually changed. However, it is troublesome to send an instruction to change the display size each time the person moves in the front-rear direction and, thus, it is difficult to have a smooth communication.